Another toke of the big smoke

Start of October (yes, I'm a little behind) I moved back to Toronto. I'm staying with my buddy, Christian, who, in a funny things-coming-full-circle kind of way, was who I lived with when I first moved to Canada, ten or so years ago. Back then I spent 4 months on his couch in a one bedroom basement apartment, and since he tolerated me there, one can be optimistic that we can get along while I live in his several-bedroom house a little out of town.

Now that I've moved from the outdoor paradise that is Calgary, epics are nearly a thing of the past. I can't remember the last time I was unintentionally stuck outside, after dark. Miles from salvation. Potentially half-way up a cliff. Or other similiarly fun times.

Never the less, I try. Jesse and co were going to ride in the Don Valley, so I rode the 30km in to town on the mountain bike, rode with them for an hour or two, then, since no one was waiting for me any more, took the path less traveled to return... Where the road & bike path diverged from the Lake Ontario shoreline, I found a park which abutted the lake (Greyabbey Park, in case anyone is interested), lowered my bike down the cliff (I so wanted to ghost-ride it off, but decided I didn't want to risk walking 20km home, carrying a busted bike) and rode along the beach for a few kilometres.

I had no idea Toronto had such nice, secluded beaches

Wilson?

Eventually the bike path returns to the water's edge, and after giving the bike a quick dunk in the water (living by fresh water is occasionally a good thing!) to wash the sand out of the brakes, I was quite happy to get back on pavement - even with 3.5" tires and riding just out of the lapping waves where the sand was most packed, it had been pretty tough going!

Nightrider

There's some pretty solid mountain biking to be found where I live right now, Saint-Sauveur-des-Monts in the Laurentians. It makes sense, considering there are half a dozen ski resorts within 10km of here, but after you move away from the Rockies, it's easy to assume otherwise.

Given my tendency to crash when I ride the trails, I typically try to stay off my mountain bike for the summer road season. But now that road is finished, it's game on! And what better way to throw caution to the wind than go after dark? I hooked up with a few folks from my local bike shop, Espresso Sports, on the weekly evening ride, got to borrow a light, and off we went.

It turns out this was not a novel concept - we ran into three other groups over the course of the evening. And two dogs, both which could quite effortlessly overtake me on the uphills. Didn't anyone tell them about my fragile ego??

We started off at dusk, and so hadn't yet switched our lights on. But once we regrouped after the first section, it was time. I had almost declined the offered light, since I had my headlamp in my car, but luckily for me, I hadn't. I guess it has been a while since I last checked out the latest lighting options on the market...holy cow! This thing was akin to having car headlights attached to my handlebars. In fact, I wouldn't mind attaching to to my car hood, it's probably better! haha Ok, that might be an exaggeration, but I was blown away by how well it lit the trail, and blinded anyone who strayed across my path. The only time I had any issue was when the trail opened up and we bombed down some berms...since the light was pointing the wrong direction by being attached to my handlebars, trying to look through the turn was simply staring into inky darkness.

For fear of sounding like a shill, I considered not mentioning the actual maker. But I figured you're more interested in what I was using than wary of being peddled gadgetry. So I headed to the manufacturer's website, Light & Motion, and it turns out I was the lucky user of their highest-end offering, the Seca 1400. Oh, and look, the website includes the retail price....Wowzers! Until I got into racing, all my BIKES were cheaper than that bad boy. Or, to put it another way, I could pay someone minimum wage for two years to come on a weekly MTB ride and run alongside carrying a flashlight. But hopefully it'll be less than two years before I can MTB faster than someone on foot carrying a Dolphin! Or a golden retriever, for that matter.

Crazy, urban MTB race

VCA 2010 RACE RUN from changoman on Vimeo.

From the 2010 Valparaiso Cerro Abajo race through the narrow, mountainous streets of Valparaiso, Chile.

Bow 80 pre-ride and aftermath

I've been hearing great things about the Bow 80, an 80km MTB race that links up a bunch of awesome Kananaskis trails, so I was pumped to join Stappie, Bunnin, McNeil, Baylee, Bakke and a couple of other hard men for a pre-ride this past weekend.

We left via Station Flats, and everything was going great for about the first 45 minutes, which is when I did a bit of a superman down some rock-strewn single-track. My left side took a bit a beating, but I was able to keep going. No problem...only 6 and a bit hours to go.

I managed to pull myself together for Powderface, but after a bit of gravel, got introduced to real MTB climbing...instead of the usual 100-metre steep spin-up, it was an hour of so of pretty consistent switching-backing as we worked up Jumping Pound Ridge and Cox Hill. I blew to bits.

I eventually caught up to Bakke in time for the thunder, lightening, rain, and reaching the exposed mountain top. Nothing like a few 3-million-volt bolts of lightening to keep you from dilly-dallying. We made it to the descent without incident, and Bakke then got to put on a bit of descending school - when he was in sight, that is. But he waited at regular intervals, while I bumped, crashed and careened down the hill side in typical fashion. No other major injuries, but every little fall involved another body-shot, charlie horse, or corked calf, which was taking its toll!


Note the interesting seat angle...thanks to a ditch seen a little late

Eventually we reach the bottom, at Dawson Creek, and had only 30 or so km of foot-deep mud to negotiate until we got on the Tom Snow double-track to get back to the car park. The others looked fresh and clean, I guess they'd had half an hour to kill while they'd waited. Took almost 7 hours on the nose.


Props to Bakke for the well-timed pants change

As a little post-script, I continued the fine tradition of education-by-injury: turns out the canteloupe-sized rock I took to the kidney did a number on my obliques and/or psoas, which is worst when I try to sit up in bed...like I needed another reason to stay lying down!